“In the 1990s, crime publishers often used ‘distressed text’ on book covers to give the impression of a damaged page.” - from Joel Lane’s story in NULL IMMORTALIS

cover design by Dean Harkness

A Retrocausal Epitaph to Secret Synchronicity (RESS)

from Megazanthus

and the author of ‘The Synchronised Shards of Random Truth and Fiction’ (SSRTF) and the publisher of ‘Cern Zoo’

.Published 29 June 2010.

Brand new stories:

TURN AGAIN by William Meikle
A GIANT IN THE HOUSE by Daniel Pearlman
APOTHEOSIS by D.P. Watt
THE RETURN by S.D. Tullis
LUCIEN’S MENAGERIE by David Fitzpatrick
VIOLETTE DORANGES by David V. Griffin
EVEN THE MIRROR by Ursula Pflug
LOVE IS THE DRUG by Andrew Hook
THE DROWNED MARKET by Joel Lane
THE SCREAM by Tim Casson
THE SHELL by Tony Lovell
STRINGS ATTACHED by Gary Fry
OBLIVION by Derek John
TROOT by Margaret B. Simon
A MATTER OF DEGREE by Mike Chinn
ONLY ENUMA ELISH by Richard Gavin
ICARUS ABOVE… by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
YOU HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR by Reggie Oliver
HOLESALE by Rachel Kendall
‘FIRE’ by Roy Gray
BROOM PEOPLE by Cameron Pierce
THE TOYMAKER OF BREMEN by Stephen Bacon
THE MAN WHO MADE THE YELLOW GOD by Mark Valentine
THE GREEN DOG by Steve Rasnic Tem
HAVEN’T YOU EVER WONDERED? by Bob Lock
SUPERMARINE by Tim Nickels

3 July 2010: All contributor and most review copies have now been issued. There is a Null Immortalis related competition to win an out of print ‘Weirdmonger’ book at the seventh comment here: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/null_immortalis_in_context.htm

5 July 2010: Retrocausal review: http://grimreviews.blogspot.com/2010/07/nemonymous-ten-null-immortalis.html

23 July 2010: First review: http://matthewfryer.com/2010/07/23/null-immortalis-nemonymous-ten/ ”I would recommend this book to anybody who enjoys an anthology to savour. The subtleties, the synchronicity, the love of language. It cares not for genre, other than the general blanket of weird fiction, and blends imagination with startling humanity. The stories are ordered so that themes sometimes leak from one to the next, but best of all, they credit the reader with intelligence; there is no unecessary explanation of thread or coincidence. Null Immortalis is a respectful equal, not a weary teacher.”

28 July 2010: Grim Review: The Nightmare-Collision Art of SD Tullis: http://grimreviews.blogspot.com/2010/07/nightmare-collision-art-of-sd-tullis.html

1 August 2010: Two real time reviews: Rog Pile: http://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?t=3725&page=4 and me (!) as a sort of Director’s Commentary: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/null_immortalis__a_realtime_review.htm

3 August 2010: Caroline Callaghan: HERE: “I’ve been wanting to put something together to say here about Null Immortalis, but I just can’t find the words. No matter what I was to say about it, it just wouldn’t be enough. I don’t think I have the vocabulary to express the impact these stories have had on me. I’ll say just one thing – this book really MUST win awards. It’s the most amazing anthology I’ve ever read.”

5 August 2010: Joe Pulver HERE: “Des is also doing a “real-time” review of NULL on his site, a kind of director’s commentary on the fascinating tales he’s collected for this tome. Neat idea.”

7 August 2010: http://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/review-of-null-immortalis-now-vanished/ A review including: “NULL IMMORTALIS: NEMONYMOUS TEN is a triumph of creativity and craft that resonates in the reader’s mind long after the final page has been turned. Bravo!”

15 August 2010: A review from Grim Blogger here:
http://grimreviews.blogspot.com/2010/08/nemonymous-ten-null-immortalis-reviewed.html Including…
“The stories crafted and laid out by Lewis’ impeccable editorial selection amounts to nothing less than a feast for all the senses, and a gallery of literary iconography for the intellect that cannot help but prompt deep contemplation.” /
“These tales, these books, are nothing less than dreams laboriously rendered into prose. The horrors, the heavens, and the gray voids in between preserved by the editor and his authors are attempts to communicate their visions on a common theme in a dialogue as labyrinthine as any philosophical discourse, and far more entertaining. Null Immortalis‘ probing into space, psyche, and time is four-dimensional, and few story collections ever chance at achieving this. For this reason, Nemonymous will be missed, and will one day live on in collectors’ clutches, occasionally crossing vast distances for large sums of money. Null Immortalis is a distinguished epitaph for the series, but it may also drift into the future as relentlessly as the fan blades on its cover, a subversive ark intent on spawning new literary flora when and where they are least expected.”

15 August 10: Starrysothoth here: http://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?p=51013#post51013 ”Null Immortalis is practically all one could wish for in an anthology. In a different sense, it pleasantly reminded me of the way certain publications used to be a few decades ago (I’m thinking of magazines like Tekeli-Li, Dagon, and anthologies so packed full of great fiction that you would literally read them cover-to-cover instead of just browsing through). I have no doubt that some of these Null Immortalis stories will be reappearing in story collections by their authors.”

16 August 10: David Hebblethwaite’s real-time review of NULL IMMORTALIS has started here (based on a google search of mine): http://davidhblog.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/null-immortalis-nemonymous-ten-2010/ I can’t wait for this to develop!

7 September 10: “At that moment Tullis heard a sound from behind him – a dry shuffling noise that could surely only be the wind… At any rate he didn’t turn to look, rather kept his gaze on the woman in front of him. She didn’t appear to have detected any movement… so there simply couldn’t be any”

October 2010: this anthology series, which has made a virtue out of doing things differently. – Peter Tennant, Black Static #19.November 6 2010: HERE: Null Immortalis is, in appearance, a handsome book, a trade paperback that just might be one of those things some intrepid bookstore explorer pulls off a shelf in twenty years because it catches their eye. [...] The cover is quite classic, soft colors and a slightly aged look.

November 10 2010: HERE: “as an example of the ineffable strangeness that defines these books it’s first rate.”

November 24 2010: HERE ”in all stories there is a common hero, SD Tullis. On the one hand, it’s just a name, on another – the name of something more. SD Tullis is what we are pursuing all our life, this is what kills us, and what makes us strong. This is the secret of life, but also the mystery of death.”

January 1 2011: Very proud that the acclaimed ‘GRIM REVIEWS’ has placed Nemomymous Ten: NULL IMMORTALIS in its best of 2010:
http://grimreviews.blogspot.com/2010/12/best-weird-horror-of-2010-in-review.html
And Matthew Fryer, too: http://shocklinesforum.yuku.com/topic/17245?page=3

2 January 2011: another 2010 Best of: http://www.countgore.com/gore/library.htm

1 February 2011: Delighted to see that NULL IMMORTALIS is on ballot list for Stoker Awards: http://gwailowrite.livejournal.com/330971.html And Margaret B Simon’s TROOT from it.

18 February 2011: A new review: http://exaggeratedpress.weebly.com/reviews.html – Quite simply, the last Nemonymous Megazanthus, Null Immortalis, is a tour de force. It is a long, many hued, many–voiced journey through the imagination of a set of fine writers. It is strange, straight, funny, tragic, dark and then filled with light. The fiction inside that surreal cover, decorated by a row wind turbines so arranged to look like a tree, or even a many-winged insect, is beyond genre, defies pigeon-holes. It is simply fiction, it is simply writers, writing.

13 March 2011: Congratulations to S.D. Tullis whose story from NU entitled THE RETURN appears on the list here: http://www.darkecho.com/darkfantasy/ i.e. the announcement that this story is appearing in the book ‘The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror‘, 2011 Edition. And thanks, SDT, for lending your name to characters in all the NU stories!

Ellen Datlow’s Honorable Mentions for ‘Best Horror of the Year’ volume three

Bacon, Stephen “The Toymaker of Bremen,”

Fry, Gary “Strings Attached,”

Kendall, Rachel “Holesale,”

Lane, Joel “The Drowned Market,”

Nickels, Tim “Supermarine,” (novella)

Oliver, Reggie “You Have Nothing to Fear,”

Pearlman, Daniel “A Giant in the House,”

Simon, Marge “Troot,”

Tullis, S. D. “The Return,”

comments (3)

1. Weirdmonger left…

Quote from link immediately above: “Just agreed a contract for a story in the last Nemonymous anthology, Null Immortalis. I’m especially happy to have it accepted by Des Lewis, as he was one of the reasons I got going in the first place in the small press, and my story is about the turning of cycles, and death and rebirth.”
2. Weirdmonger left…

sea-axes
3. Weirdmonger left…

NULL IMMORTALIS IN CONTEXT at link immediately above.